When the comedic actress Kristen Wiig came up with the idea to ban breathing in order to stabilize CO2 emissions, she probably didn’t expect a leading Republican presidential candidate to take it seriously.

But sure enough, in pushing his flip flop on climate change to an extreme degree, Mitt Romney did exactly that at a campaign stop last week:

“I’m all in favor of eliminating pollution,” Romney said. “Now I know there is also a movement to say that carbon dioxide should be guided or should be managed by the Environmental Protection Agency. I disagree with that.

“I exhale carbon dioxide,” he added. “I don’t want those guys following me around with a meter to see if I’m breathing too hard.”

Even in jest, Romney’s comparison of human exhalation of CO2 and the burning of 300-million-year-old carbon is so incredibly ludicrous, it is a punch line in itself. The former Massachusetts governor, who once backed efforts to combat climate change, has now joined the ranks of the most extreme climate deniers.

One can imagine the climate strategy meetings taking place within the Romney campaign. Does Kristen Wiig have inside information?

(Note the video below is part of a longer skit produced about the Clinton Global Initiative, which we covered. If you haven’t seen the whole piece, it’s worth your time.)

Though “even” IF we would “remove” somehow all human meddlings from the earth – the climate would keep on warming. This is because there is so much “stuff” (Co2 equivalent) in the pipeline already. What we have today in “ppm”, is the consequnce from the emissions, emitted 30 years ago.

This post, instead of being a silly poke at a ridiculous comment, made in jest, by Romney, could have been something like this:

A direct, well-worded, compelling “open letter” to Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust (of Harvard), Steve Ellis (of Bain), Orit Gadiesh (of Bain), and Count Jacques Rogge (of the IOC) asking and encouraging them to write an open letter, and make an appeal, to Romney to recognize the reality of climate change, get real, be honest with the American people, and become part of responsibly changing the political dialogue and debate in America in order to help humankind face and address global warming.

Get it?

Here’s the idea (described numerous times before, but perhaps not this clearly):

Step 1 — ClimateProgress (Joe and/or you), perhaps with the help and co-signature of Bill McKibben, writes a great post addressed specifically to those four people, along the lines just mentioned. (If you need help drafting it, I’ll help.)

Step 2 — Those four people write a joint letter to Romney, send it to him, and also make it public as an open letter, to be published here and in the media. Copies will also be sent to politicians competing with Romney from both parties.

Step 3 — ClimateProgress, the environmental organizations, the media, the Obama political machine, and so forth all cover the letter, as the case may be, and use it in whatever ways come natural to them.

For those who haven’t been following, Romney’s entire educational and professional credibility, before his governorship, involve his stint at Harvard (as a JD-MBA and Baker Scholar), his long professional career at Bain, and his leadership of the Salt Lake City Olympics. SO, if the present President of Harvard, the two present leaders at Bain, and the present head of the International Olympic Committee, write a joint letter to Romney calling on him to get real and get honest, that can’t fail to be newsworthy and create interesting dialogue. Get it?

But nothing gets started without a first step.

Given its high potential for creating “interesting dialogue” and a bit of attention and buzz, and ultimately a great deal of good, the amount of work involved in getting this started would be tiny in comparison. Tiny. One well-written attention-grabbing post, and then some limited followup.

So, in the future, will we see increasing numbers of posts that make jokes about ridiculous comments, made in jest, but saying the same old things, on the part of Romney and etc., OR will we see more and more posts addressed to specific individuals, small groups of individuals, and perhaps specific institutions (e.g., some of the scientific bodies) that offer specific suggestions and make specific, concrete, requests?

Of course, if human respiration was really the issue, we would want to reduce aerobic exercise and ban being over weight and over eating. Just holding one’s breath does not reduce energy use.

However, even on the special days when I ride my bicycle 100 miles, the amount of organic carbon oxidized by my exercise is much less than my drive to work in a gasoline fueled car. And the other issue is the difference between short term recycling of CO2 between photosynthesis and respiration and using fossil fuels.

This sort of numbskull silliness has been a favourite amongst the more bumptious denialists, in politics and the media, here in Australia, ‘The Land of Opportunity’ for some time. It makes them appear smart, witty, and -Gawd ‘elpus- ‘savvy’, to the Dunning-Kruger rabble who follow them. After all the world witnessed several Crusades, the latest, according to a slip of Bush’s tongue, quite recent, and one was the notorious ‘Childrens’ Crusade’. Why not a ‘Cretins’ Crusade’ for self-destruction?